


One Of Those Days

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21675133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: When Dan  was younger he'd always wondered if love was finite, if you could eventually just run out, waste it all on the wrong things and end up burnt out with nothing else left to give.Except it's been ten years and he doesn't think he's running out anytime soon.In which Dan is having one of those days, and Phil tries to help.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 30
Kudos: 175





	One Of Those Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midnight_radio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_radio/gifts).



> for Andrea, who was having one of those days, too <3
> 
> I wrote this in like 3 hours so it's nowhere near perfect, but it's done and that's what counts! Hope you enjoy anyway <3

"One of those days?" Phil says.

  
Dan's hunkered down over a cup of coffee. He doesn't even _want_ the coffee, he'd just wanted something to do with his hands. The smell makes him feel vaguely ill, that early morning wishy-washy feeling that comes before food and cleaning your teeth, a weird _off_ flutter in his guts like when he was a deeply hungover fresher.

  
"Mm," He says, 'cause it _is_ one of those days. He pushes the coffee across the table to Phil, shaking his head at himself.

  
Phil sits down, all bed hair and pyjamas and pillow creases, and takes a sip. His bare foot finds Dan's ankle under the table. It's clumsy but it makes him sigh out all the air he was holding in, bleeding tension out of himself.

  
"This is good," Phil says, about the coffee. 

  
"I love you," Dan says.

  
Phil squints, corners of his eyes wrinkling, and says, "It's not _that_ good."

  
"Wanker," Dan says, laughing. It's weak and tired but it's a laugh. It's something.

  
Phil grins at him. Dan feels stupid - ungrateful, he guesses - for having bad days when he has _this_ , Phil sitting opposite him, cold toes still nudging against Dan's leg, the most rubbish unsubtle flirt in history. 

  
"Brains are stupid," Phil says, wisely, like he read Dan's mind.

  
"Fucking hell, they are."

  
Phil takes another big glug of coffee, getting some of it on his lip and just leaving it there. It glints in the morning light when he speaks.

  
"Ever think about how we're just, like," He waves, vaguely. "Brains. Like brains powering skeletons. Like that Tumblr post."

  
"I sent you that post," Dan reminds him. "And yeah, it's messed up. I've got this one muscle that's, like, a total mess and it just so happens to be the one piloting my meat suit."

  
Phil snorts out a laugh at _meat suit_. Dan just knows that's what he's laughing at.

  
"Brains aren't muscles, are they? Siri -"

  
"Fuck off, it's a muscle."

  
_I won't respond to that_ , Siri says.

  
"Apparently it's an organ," Phil muses, flipping his phone around so Dan can see Google.

  
"Dumbass organ."

  
Phil just inclines his head in a _you're not wrong_ kind of way.

  
"D'you wanna hibernate? Cancel all our plans and stuff. Do we have any plans?"

  
Like he isn't the one in charge of their schedule, or anything. Like he doesn't remind Dan about meetings and parties and birthdays and all of that. Not that Dan doesn't remember himself, it's just - two heads are better than one, he guesses.

  
"Dunno," He says. "We need food. The bread's growing, like, mould, or something."

  
Phil pulls a face.

  
"We have cereal though. And milk?"

  
He sounds so hopeful at the end there that Dan can't help but grin.

  
"Yeah, we have milk."

  
"Great." He finishes the cup of coffee (it's beyond Dan how he hasn't, like, scorched his oesophagus doing that by now) and gets up, leaving Dan's ankle immediately cold without his foot awkwardly nudging into it. "Cereal, let's go."

  
He ducks out of the room and Dan sits there, trying to convince the heedless knot of anxiety his insides are twisting themselves into that everything's fine, that there's literally, genuinely nothing to be worried about at all.

  
Mindfulness. He can smell the lemon cleaning spray he used to wipe the table yesterday. There's a siren wailing somewhere, streets and streets away. There's-

  
"Hey," Phil ducks back into the room, peering owlishly around the door. "I love you too."

  
Then he's gone, humming under his breath, off to the kitchen.

  
Dan swallows, closes his eyes for a moment. When he was younger he'd always wondered if love was finite, if you could eventually just run out, waste it all on the wrong things and end up burnt out with nothing else left to give.

  
Except it's been ten years and Dan doesn't think he's running out anytime soon.

  
If anything, he feels like he has more and more every day. They reached that point when people said, _oh, you'll start finding this annoying, you'll resent your partner for this thing they do_ and - and nothing. Phil leaves socks everywhere, he never closes doors or kitchen cupboards, he leaves lights and electrical things on in a breadcrumb trail around the apartment - and Dan loves him anyway. Loves him because of those things, too. Loves everything about him, even the (sometimes) irksome things.

  
It's like that meme. RIP to straight people, but Dan's different.

  
They eat cereal in the living room in the end, Dan's cold feet tucked under Phil's thigh.

  
"I'm buying you socks for Christmas."

  
"Why do I need socks when I have this," Dan says, wiggling his toes against Phil's leg.

  
"Socks," Phil repeats, but he abandons his bowl on the coffee table and cups his hands over the exposed parts of Dan's feet, keeping them warm. "Did you sleep ok?"

  
Dan pulls a face.

  
"Remind me why I thought pizza was a good idea."

  
"Because pizza's always a good idea," Phil says, like he hadn't spent hours in the bathroom because of it. "For everyone except me," He concedes, when Dan gives him a look. "Did you have, like, cheese dreams?"

  
Dan shakes his head.

  
"Not even that," He says, pulling a face. "Just restless, I guess."

  
"You should've woken me up."

  
"Phil," Dan says. "No point in the pair of us getting no sleep."

  
Phil just looks at him. It's the kind of look that means, _bold of you to assume I'd care._

  
"Ok, fair," Dan says, automatically responding to what Phil didn't even need to say. "Anyway, it's nice, sometimes. Like, hearing you breathe when you're asleep. Like a metronome. Or, like - no, not exactly like a metronome, just - just, like, steady and keeping time."

  
"That quality early December wheeze."

  
"You sound way better now, actually," Dan says. He finally leans over to put his cereal bowl with its sad dregs of milk on the coffee table. "Can we just, like. Be close?"

  
"Of course," Phil says, voice soft.

  
-

  
The pillow is soft under Dan's head and he's gently pinching bits of Phil's hair between his fingers, soft little strokes from where his head's resting on Dan's chest, scrolling through Tumblr. He's arranged himself in such a way that Dan can see when he finds funny posts without having to make an effort. He's warm and he smells good, his thigh thrown over Dan's leg like a welcome claim, and Dan's stomach is still twisted up like he's about to deliver a speech in front of a thousand people.

  
"Dogs," Phil murmurs, softly, pausing on a gif of some puppies rolling around. Dan's hand stills in his hair, and he shifts. "More dogs or less dogs?"

  
"Dunno," Dan says. He swallows. "Feel stupid."

  
Phi shifts so he's lying on his stomach, chin digging into Dan's ribs.

  
"Not stupid," He says. "It's your brain muscle."

  
"Not a muscle, Phil, you said so yourself."

  
"Whatever," Phil says. "It's like a broken leg."

  
"You always say that," Dan says. He touches Phil's hair again, just because he can.

  
"It's always true," Phil says, nudging Dan's hand a little with his head like a cat. "If you had a broken leg and it hurt you wouldn't be like, _oh I'm stupid for being in pain_. You'd be like, _right, ok, that's just what broken legs do_."

  
"Only with more swearing."

  
Phil smiles.

  
"Well, yeah," He says. "Just - no need to be hard on yourself, alright? If today's one of those days then we just ride it out together. Like with Jack and Rose on the door in Titanic-"

  
"Oh, so I'm gonna _die_ ," Dan says. Phil's already cracked up, laughing so much that he's shuddering all over, hiding his face in Dan's shirt. Dan can't help but join in. "You _idiot_. What kind of bullshit-"

  
"I meant, like, floating!"

  
"He _dies_ , Phil," Dan says, face hurting a little from grinning so much all at once. "He literally dies."

  
"Like _surfing_ , like ride out the wave, not like _dying_."

  
"You're shit. And your similes are shit. All that English degree and you come out with _like Jack in Titanic_ , Jesus Christ."

  
"Made you laugh," Phil says, after a moment. Private and quiet, like he's whispering a secret.

  
Dan's chest feels so full then, throat thick, like he could cry, only he won't. He just feels so much for Phil that he doesn't know what to do with himself. 

  
"Yeah, you did," He says, voice a little rough. "Gimme a kiss?"

  
Phil makes a big show of rolling his eyes in mock irritation, like having to shuffle up so that their noses can touch, cold against cold, is the greatest effort in the world.

  
It doesn't make him feel magically cured. This isn't a fairytale - all of Dan's ailments can't be fixed with a kiss, even if that kiss is from Phil. But there's something about him, about the way his hands always always shake, like he's overwhelmed every single time, about how his hair feels under Dan's fingers, about the way they shift to accommodate each other, knees and hips and elbows.

  
It doesn't make everything go away, but it matters less, when he's with Phil. It always has, in some small way. And at one point he might've let himself worry about that, think that he's using Phil as a crutch, but it's not like that.

  
Dan just loves him. Simple as that. He loves Phil, and being with him is easy. It's like the volume on his self-doubt and anxiety gets turned down, just for a while. It'll always be there, rattling away in the back of his head, but he can ignore it.

  
He'll always be grateful for that.

  
-

  
Dan doesn't mean to fall asleep. He really doesn't. He feels like one moment he's curled around Phil, nose pressed against the side of his neck, and the next he's blinking, face pressed into the pillow, and he can smell toast.

  
"I bought bread," Phil says, like he can just sense that Dan's awake now. Knowing him, he probably can.

  
"Mmf," Dan manages, articulately. He rolls onto his back, blinks at Phil, who's lying there next to him, playing some game on his phone. "You went out?"

  
"For, like, two seconds," Phil says, and shuffles in to kiss him on the cheek. "I left you a note."

  
"Mm," Dan says, and yawns. Phil just stays there, face close to his, breath soft against his cheek. "Time is it?"

  
"One."

  
Dan groans.

  
"We have to - I should..." He can't come up with anything. He just constantly feels like he should be somewhere, doing something.

  
"I did the washing up," Phil says. "And got stuff for dinner. We're having pasta."

  
Dan smiles and turns around so they're facing each other, a tangle of limbs, Phil so close it's making him go cross-eyed.

  
"You gonna rinse it first?" He teases.

  
Phil laughs and kisses him.

  
"Hey," He says, after a moment. "How's the broken leg?"

  
It takes Dan a second to realise what he means.

  
"Not so bad," He says, and lets Phil fold him into his arms.


End file.
